


Beacons to the Underworld

by voleuse



Category: Falling Water (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 01:37:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17013081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voleuse/pseuds/voleuse
Summary: Our lives together suddenly recognizable as if seared pages from a larger book.Sometimes they idle in dreams that aren’t actually nightmares.





	Beacons to the Underworld

**Author's Note:**

  * For [team_fen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/team_fen/gifts).



> Set mid-S2.

i. _you touched our absence from each other_  
When Tess opened her eyes, she found herself in the blue-tinged light of the nightmare building, and she spun around, panicking for a minute, before she spotted James in the corner. “Hey,” she said. James folded his arms, and she crossed the room and knelt in front of him. “Did they--”

Then she broke off. Breathed deep, looked around. The thrum, the _wrongness_ of that landscape wasn’t present. They were...enclosed.

“This isn’t that place.” Tess turned back to James. “Is this yours?”

James nodded, then sat down with her, bending his knees and hugging them. He scooted around until he was side-by-side with her, and she looped an arm around his shoulders and let him cuddle close. Slowly, the cast of light warmed, and the walls faded from industrial whitewash to a friendlier cream. 

“I like it,” Tess said. “What else?”

They whispered together, for maybe minutes, maybe hours. Tess told him about her own room, and about castles, and pirate ships, and rainforests. James stretched his arms up, and the ceiling shattered into a galaxy of diamond-bright stars. With his assent, Tess pressed her hand against a wall and it dissolved to reveal a seashore, the sand studded with starfish and tangled kelp.

When Tess woke up, she found James snuggled against her, his arms tight around her waist, his hair adorably mussed. She thought about waking him, taking him out for pancakes. Then he murmured in his sleep, and she thought she heard him giggle.

So she closed her eyes, and drifted back to join him.

 

ii. _a girl runs toward me_  
Taka watched Sabine for a few moments, as he crossed over into her dream. The arch of her wrist as she swept her hand through the bouquet. Her smile as she looked out the window to a spring morning, and how the sun shone through the fall of her hair. When she looked up and saw him, standing in the doorway, he hoped the uncertainty in her eyes was about the dream, and not him.

But she stood and stretched her hands out to him. “Taka.” Whatever had wavered in her eyes melted into relief. “You always find me here.”

He stepped forward and caught her hands in his, pulled her into his arms and pressed his face into her hair. Breathed deep the scents of jasmine and cotton and fresh manila folders. “I’ll always find you,” he murmured. “Anywhere you want to be.”

She shivered in his arms, the outline of her body flickering out for a half-second. Taka tightened his arms around her when she returned.

“Taka,” she said, fearful.

He drew back to shake his head. “Stay here. With me.” He pressed a quick kiss against her forehead. “Forget for a while.” He kissed her again, and the sunlight brightened to summer-gold. 

“Okay,” Sabine said. She tugged him over to the kitchen table, where coffee and beignets awaited them. “Tell me about your new partner,” she said, and there was a hint of the brisk case-worker in her voice.

Taka smiled. He settled in the chair across from her, but kept her hands clasped in his. “She thinks I’m crazy,” he admitted.

Sabine laughed. “I know the feeling,” she responded, and, at least for now, here, everything felt normal again.

 

iii. _when I am gone, come back_  
Burton was staring into his drink when Tess slid into the seat across from him. He looked up with her, and Tess was surprised to see dread on his face in that half-second before he recognized her.

“Not who you expected?” she asked. He shook his head. “Do I want to know who?” He shook his head again. Tess turned that over in her mind, then neatly took his drink out of his hand, downing the rest of it with an easy gulp.

“How did you find me?” he asked, looking ruefully at the empty glass she set back on the table.

“I can find anyone, remember?” Tess said. She looked around. “Didn’t we see some guy get murdered here?”

“Right.” Burton stood, tossed a bill onto the table. _Why?_ He offered Tess a hand. “Where should we go instead?”

Tess rose and smiled up at him. “I know just the place,” she said and, his hand still caught in hers, she led him into what should have been a door to the diner’s kitchen. Instead, they emerged into what looked like an abandoned factory, except it was filled with glittering lights, the subdermal throb of music too loud to process, and a press of bodies that somehow gave the impression of synchrony. 

Burton looked down at Tess, and she laughed at the consternation on his face. She squeezed his hand, then let go. She snapped her fingers, and the music rippled to a slower tempo. The mob disentangled into a more manageable crowd, and Tess realized, with pleasure, that Burton was wearing a tux. The gown she found herself wearing was shot silk, and the folds of the skirt swirled as she spun in a circle. 

“I am a pretty awful dancer,” she told Burton as he caught her about the waist.

“That’s all right,” he said. “I’m quite good at it.” Tess waggled her eyebrows at him, and he laughed as he swept her onto the dance floor.

 

iv. _the forge, the fire, the glimpsed blade_  
Tess found Taka tossing pennies into a fountain, flipping them impossibly high before they whistled sharply down into the water. She found herself longing for her camera, but stuck her hands in her pockets instead. “Where is this?” she asked.

Taka turned to her, taking a seat on the edge of the fountain. “I don’t actually know,” he said. “I remember coming here with my mom, but I don’t think it’s here in the city.”

“It does seem familiar,” Burton said, striding up to them. “Another place we have in common, perhaps?”

“Another thing to figure out, I guess,” Taka said. He stood again. “Who’s on point tonight?”

Burton tipped his head. “Tess, I believe.” He grimaced at Taka. “I’d rather not have two sleepwalking sessions in a row.”

Taka raised his hands, fending off their frowns. “If you don’t practice--”

“Doesn’t make it fun,” Tess said. 

“Indeed,” Burton said. “So what do you have on the agenda?”

Tess smiled. “Catch me if you can,” she said. And she raised her hand, snapped her fingers, and disappeared.

**Author's Note:**

> Title, summary, and headings adapted from Maxine Scates’s "[Last](https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/last)."


End file.
